Question

I’m very new to xslt, and wondering how to do a sort based on a derived variable such as the following (using xslt 1.0):

xml:

<channel>
  <item>
     <title>#2: Second Guy</title>
  </item>
  <item>
     <title>#3: Third Guy</title>
  </item>
  <item>
     <title>#1: First Guy</title>
  </item>
</channel>

xslt attempt:

<xsl:for-each select="channel/item" >

        <xsl:sort select="$rank" data-type="number" order="ascending" />

        <xsl:variable name="rankStartPosn" select="string-length(substring-before(title, '#'))+1"/>
        <xsl:variable name="rankEndPosn" select="string-length(substring-before(title, ':'))+1"/>
        <xsl:variable name="rank" select="substring(title,number($rankStartPosn), number($rankEndPosn)-number($rankStartPosn))"/>

                <p class="Normal">
                    <xsl:value-of select="title" />
                </p>
            </xsl:if>
        </xsl:if>
    </xsl:for-each>

Desired output:

#1: First Guy
#2: Second Guy
#3: Third Guy

Thanks in advance for any help!
Chad

Answer 1

Simpler:

<xsl:sort select="substring(substring-before(title, ':'), 2)" 
          data-type="number" order="ascending" />